Notes on the GOP Convention

1. Donald Trump’s daughter (with Marla Maples) Tiffany speaks Tuesday night at the Republican national convention. The Hanging Shad has obtained an excerpts:“Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister’s eyes, Into your brother’s face, your country And say simply Very simply With hopeGood morning.”

Tiffany Trump

2. Rudy Giuliani has lost his mind.

3. I’m sure Hoosiers are happy to be rid of Mike Pence. Just please, please don’t hoist this guy on the nation.

4. The Duck Dynasty guy was actually on stage. What does this mean?

5. The Oswald transfer was better coordinated than this convention. “Hey, the guy who owns the local strips clubs is here and he’s got a gun. Can we let him in?” “Sure, no problem.” (Dennis Miller).

6. One of the “outside speech writers” who reportedly worked on Melania Trump’s plagiarized speech is former G.W. Bush speechwriter Matt Scully. Let’s get something clear: I’ve written speeches for state senate presidents, mayors, legislators, members of Congress and even two US senators. This ass-hat is no relation.

7. New Iowa Sen. and supposed rising star Joni Ernst spoke at about 11:30 p.m., long after the networks were onto their late shows and this guy was nighty-night.

8. The most effective message of the convention so far is not from a Republican. This has been running on all the networks. It’s very effective.

9. By the way, from what I hear, “Help is on the way.”

10. For what it’s worth, the speech writing process goes like this (at least in my experience): You’re given a topic and a context. Hopefully you have some very good researchers (I had the very best at the state capitol). You get talking point from research, you try to build an image, some vision, even some poetry-like wording and make it flow into what you’re trying to say.

Then, you run it back to research to make sure your facts are straight. From there, you run to the person you’re writing for, they’re tweak it, make suggestions. You write another draft incorporating the boss’ (or client’s) ideas. There is the chance that the “tweaking” part can take multiple drafts and multiple changes in focus. Patience is needed.

There is no better feeling than when a speech you wrote is nailed by the person giving it. There’s a distinct (very quiet) feeling of “I wrote that.” But you never say it. It’s the deliverer’s speech and you try to leave the feeling that he or she really wrote. Personally you know differently. And that’s enough.